Lenbrook, whose brands include NAD Electronics, PSB Speakers, and Bluesound, has acquired the assets of MQA, the UK-based leader in high-resolution audio encoding. This acquisition enriches Lenbrook’s intellectual property portfolio with an assortment of significant patents and introduces two prominent audio codecs — MQA and SCL6.
“Lenbrook’s vision is of a thriving hi-fi industry where technologies that promote both consumer choice and the pursuit of the highest sound quality are deserving of investment and nurture,” stated Gordon Simmonds, CEO of Lenbrook. “We view this acquisition as an opportunity to ensure the technologies developed by the scientists and engineers at MQA continue to serve the industry’s interests rather than be confined to any single brand or company.”
George Massenberg, Grammy-winning producer and recording engineer, reacted to the announcement, saying “I’m so relieved that MQA and SCL6 will continue under Lenbrook. MQA’s technology, with its faithful rendering of detail, complexity, and sound stage, gave us the reason to go back into the recording studio and reverse a 20-year decline in the quality of audio delivery methods.”
Founded from the insights and support of record industry executives, recording artists, and audio engineering experts, MQA sought to provide creators with the means to efficiently preserve the detail and nuance of their works in high resolution recorded formats, which at the time pushed directly against the trend toward heavily compressed music.
“I’m delighted that MQA will continue in good hands with Lenbrook,” added Morten Lindberg, Grammy-nominated master engineer at 2L. “For 2L, using MQA has allowed us to enhance the experience of our recordings, beyond the raw capture, with increased access to sonic details, transparency and lower listening fatigue.”
“MQA is the only technology that considers the entire audio signal chain, from studio to listening room, to assure consistent quality of reproduction. The patents and research that underlie MQA represent significant contributions to digital audio quality due to their focus on time domain issues that have not been well understood until recently,” explained Greg Stidsen, chief technology officer of Lenbrook. “We’re determined to continue to develop our marketplace and encourage the possibilities these technologies can achieve.”
Lenbrook has established a position as a stable and well capitalized organization that takes a long-term view of investments and market development. MQA had amassed over 120 licensees and several content partnerships, so Lenbrook’s primary objective in this acquisition was to provide certainty for business and technical developments that were underway prior to MQA’s administration. As a result, Lenbrook retained a core group of engineers and developers and sales and marketing personnel including Andy Dowell, previously the Head of Licensing for MQA, who will continue to lead business development activities.
“As one of MQA’s most significant licensees and also the owner of the award winning BluOS high-res content platform, Lenbrook is well positioned to build on what was started,” Dowell aded. “Its BluOS platform work has proven that the Lenbrook team understands it takes a certain amount of neutrality to be a licensor, but it can also take a customer view when it comes to the wants and needs from a product development standpoint.”
